I hope you won’t judge the quality of my writing by that of my photography. Unfortunately, my BB cellphone is showing its age and just is not up to the task of indoor shooting in low light. However, these shots, poor as they are will give you a taste of the Ottawa Authors and Artisans Fair that took place this past Sunday at the Jack Purcell Community Centre off Elgin Street.
Unfortunately, the weather did not really cooperate and I entered the building during the tail-end of a nasty bout of freezing rain and wondered how this might have affected the turn-out. It seems that Ottawans in general and perhaps the literary crowd in particular, are a hardy bunch indeed because the place was a hive of activity!
Although I joined the Ottawa Independent Writers Group some months ago and have followed its Ottawa Meetup and Facebook pages with some regularity, this is the first event that I actually attended, having been too busy putting the finishing touches to my most recent publication: Eeny Meeny – Proof that the Gods MUST be Crazy.
The first thing that struck me about this gathering was the sheer breadth and depth of the talent pool here. Almost every imaginable genre was represented from autobiography, local history and travel on the non-fiction side, to sci-fi, fantasy, detective, thriller, erotica and exotica and children’s book in fiction. If you could not find something to tickle your fancy here, you must be dead from the neck-up!
The second most noticeable facet of the meetup was the outgoing nature of almost all the exhibitors who were willing and eager to discuss the details of their work in a low-key non-threatening manner. Once they learned that you were a writer yourself, they were usually more than ready to share any hints and tips they deemed might be useful.
All in all, this was a pleasant and informative experience and I will endeavour to become more involved with this group in future and will definitely be an exhibitor next year.
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